Black is white, up is down and short is long,
And everything you thought was just so
important doesn't matter
Everything you know is wrong,
Just forget the words and sing along,
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong
- Wierd Al Yankovic

Friday, September 2, 2011

Carrots Do Not Improve Your Eyesight

Britain Convinces Germany That Carrots Give You Powers

Of course, boasting about military strength is what you do to prevent war. But once war has started, you want to do the opposite -- you want to hide your true capabilities from the enemy, so they can't counteract them. So, for instance, during World War II the British were in that position of being the proverbial guy who has to convince the other guys he has a small dick.

During the Battle of Britain, the Germans started noticing that a crapload of their planes were getting shot down in instances where the British shouldn't have seen them coming. It was almost like they had some sort of radio device that could detect the presence of incoming objects -- actually, it was exactly that: Britain had perfected the radar and didn't tell anyone about it. Obviously the Brits couldn't let the Germans know they had access to this new technology, otherwise they could bomb the shit out of it or, even worse, try to create their own Nazi version. With the Germans getting increasingly suspicious, something needed to be done fast.

British papers published a story about a RAF pilot called John "Cat Eyes" Cunningham who had shot down 20 enemy planes thanks to his superhuman night vision, an ability he achieved by eating lots of carrots. Other carrot-eating pilots followed, and soon the British government began publicizing the fact that carrots improve night vision -- which, of course, is complete bullshit.Carrots might help your vision not get worse, but they won't make it any better either. The pilots were winning the war thanks to radar technology, not by eating filthy plants.

Still, the propaganda campaign worked so well that the British people began growing and eating their own carrots so that they could see better during the blackouts (running-into-walls related deaths went up 70 percent that year). The authorities knew they were lying, but it was all part of the ruse to fool the Germans. And as a result, some of you reading this had your mothers tell you to eat your carrots, because they were good for your eyes. All thanks to one bullshit propaganda campaign.

The Telegraph"Don't worry, our housewives are way better at picking out BS than the Nazi High Command."